THE Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has asked the Health and Local Government departments to fast-track the release of health emergency allowances (HEA), citing a backlog in releases.
“To resolve the bottleneck… maybe a blanket MoA (Memorandum of Agreement) could cover all private organizations and local government units (LGUs),” Budget Secretary Amenah F. Pangandaman said in a statement.
She said the Department of Health (DoH) and Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) could forward such a blanket MoA to hospitals with workers entitled to emergency allowances.
Under the DoH’s guidelines on HEA releases, private hospitals and local hospitals need to present an MoA to download their respective allowances. However, due to lack of MoA standardization, fund releases have been delayed.
The DoH has yet to release an updated mapping of HEA claims, which should detail all claims and payments to all health facilities under the Public Health Emergency Benefits and Allowances (PHEBA) program.
The DBM has said it has released P91.283 billion for the PHEBA program since 2021.
However, the DoH still owes private and local hospitals around P27 billion in unpaid claims.
The government has allocated P19.962 billion from HEAs this year, Ms. Pangandaman said. — Beatriz Marie D. Cruz